Avoid the summertime slump - take charge of seasonality in your business

Ah, summertime! Depending on where you live this may be the one time of year that you’re able to spend a significant amount of time outside—long evenings, BBQs, water sports, and vitamin D from the sun!

And depending on the services your business provides, summer may mean a significant increase in business. Or summer may mean an across-the-board decline in new client signups and revenue.

If your business experiences a seasonal slump, it’s important to plan your year (and your budget) accordingly. If you’re unprepared, the financial stress of a lean season can bring about a legitimate case of the summertime blues.

Planning for seasonality

Let’s consider a couple of strategies for planning for a lean season

Budget!

First, it’s critical to properly budget throughout the year so that you have adequate cash on hand to get you through any lean months. This means being acutely aware of your monthly operating expenses—including labor costs—and setting enough aside during your busier months to cover any dip in revenue.

Double down on marketing efforts

If you’ve been operating for a few years and know when your slow times are, you can plan in advance to implement some targeted tactics aimed at lead generation during the month or two when leads seem to run dry.

A few ideas:

• Bring a friend Incentivize current members to refer new clients, but isolate the incentive to a specific month: “Refer a friend in July, and both you and your friend will receive $40 off.”

• Workshop it Consider offering workshops that are shorter in duration to help garner interest. For example: “2-hour bodyweight training workshop.” You can then reach out to these folks at the end of your slow season with a special promotion.

• Build community Host a potluck or other community event and encourage existing clients to bring friends and family members. Use this time for relationship building, branding, and expanding your business exposure in your community. While these types of events may not generate immediate business, the exposure is certainly beneficial and may bring about new leads down the road.

Take advantage of your “off season”

You may find that no matter how tactical you get there’s a month or two that simply lags behind. With the weather so much more conducive to outdoor activities, kids out of school, and vacation plans secured, many folks minimize their routines during the summer—and that means that even your best efforts may not produce the results you’re after.

If that’s the case, you can use this less busy time to do some strategic work on your business. And provided you’ve budgeted well throughout the year, you can tackle these things without the financial pressure you might otherwise be feeling.

Get caught up on your to-do list—the things you’re often too overwhelmed to do during the busy season. Things like:

• Documenting procedures

• Implementing new systems

• Finally writing that employee handbook

• Drafting new job descriptions

Whenever possible do this work in a beautiful, restorative environment—whatever that might be for you. Often just the change in routine and perspective that comes when you go from working in your business to working on your business will have you feeling refreshed and motivated to move full steam ahead on even the most onerous of tasks.

The low season is also the perfect time to tackle repairs, maintenance work, or remodeling projects like painting, adding new flooring, or installing new equipment.

Tracking trends

Whether you’re a new business or an existing business and regardless of when you experience your slow season, it’s important to track changes in revenue, attendance, and new client signups. Software programs like Pike13 can arm you with visibility beyond just a gut-level sense of seasonality in your business, especially after you’ve been operating for more than a couple of years. Tracking these trends can help you make decisions that can carry you most effectively through any seasonal ups and downs.

Have you found a clever way to circumvent a slow season? Please share in comments! 

photo credit: bark via photopin cc
photo credit: Kris Krug via photopin cc